The right is coming for birth control, too

By Mary Sanchez, Tribune Content Agency on Jun 14, 2019

A few more lines from American Thinker's illogic about birth control: "Women could almost suddenly be as sexually indiscriminate as men had long been presumed to be. No one stopped to question whether or not promiscuity was the inherent nature of women. Nevertheless, many young women leapt into the sexual revolution with ardor and abandon. For most, it did not end well."

How did it not end well? The essay's author, Patricia McCarthy, didn't say. "Justifiable reasons for abortion -- rape, incest or a severely damaged fetus -- have always been supported by reasonable people but those cases are rare, very rare," she continued. "But the left today demands fealty to the creed of abortion on demand no matter the consequences to civil society."

Again, what are these bad consequences? McCarthy gave no clue in her essay, save for the typical "decline of the West" bromides so popular on the right.

Here's the problem for McCarthy and her ilk: Women are having sex, and they are doing it in large part without having to suffer for it as they once did.

That's it. McCarthy admitted that the "right to life," for her anyway, has exceptions. However, inconvenience of childbearing or limiting family size are not such exceptions, because they violate "Judeo-Christian values," another trite and vacuous catchphrase.

A few days before this piece was published, the well-regarded Guttmacher Institute released a policy paper to counter the confused thinking on the right about contraception and abortion.

The Guttmacher policy paper, "Promiscuity Propaganda: Access to Information and Services Does Not Lead to Increases in Sexual Activity," is heavy on statistics, citing numerous studies to show the "strong scientific consensus" debunking the girls-gone-wild ideology about reproductive health.

Further, it succinctly takes on the broader dangers of such thinking: "The argument attempts to stigmatize sex outside of heterosexual marriage, seeks to shame sexually active young people and young women in particular, and intentionally ignores the fact that for most people, sex is a normal part of adolescence and adulthood."

Many on the right, like McCarthy, bitterly lament that their religiously inflected sexual mores lack the force they once had. And so for decades they have fought to enshrine them again in law.

We have come too far as a nation to regress this way. But that won't spare us an ugly and pointless political fight.

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(Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn.)